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Nebuchadnezzar II

Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC). 612 BC The Babylonian kingdom begins with Nebuchadnezzar and continues with Nabonidus. 597 BC Jews are deported to Babylon. In the sixth century BC a true monotheistic thought starts being professed simultaneously among Israelites, Babylonians and Persians. 592-550 BC Ezekiel has the vision of the celestial chariot (cf. Ez 1:4-27). 539 BC Persians (Cyrus) conquer Babylon and Jews can return to their homeland. 485-465 BC In Persia reigns Xerxes, son of Darius the Great: Xerxes is identified with the “Assuerus“ of the biblical book of Esther, the queen who lived in the great imperial palace of Susa (Persia). 450 BC The priests of Thebes list to Herodotus 341 generations of kings, covering a total of 11,340 years rule in Egypt. First reign the gods, then the semi-gods, Horus' fellows, and later on follow the human dynasties: pharaohs consider themselves as gods' “direct descendants“ and, as such, legitimated to govern and worthy being immortal. Is it likely to think that mummification be the attempt at reproducing something got lost along with the departure of “gods”, in terms of both memory and technique? May the long interplanetary travels be undertaken through the “apparent death” induced by the technique of hibernation and subsequent “resurrection” taking place in “another world”? Can sarcophagi be inspired to such hibernation structures usually filled with 206

all accessories, tools and food, needed during the “journey” of the man who would “revive” once landed in the “world of gods”? 331 BC Alexander the Great conquers Babylon. III century BC Two important figures live and write their stories: priests Manetho, Egyptian, and Berosus, Babylonian, whom, harking back to the documents preserved in the archives of their sacred temples, compile the lists of those who have reigned in their respective lands since ancient times. It is in their writings that we can read the superhuman durations of the various antediluvian kingdoms. From the third century BC it seems that “gods” do no longer live on Earth. 207